


sick of all my days and nights

by shellfishDimes



Category: Breakers (Korea TV), FANXY CHILD (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Hair Dyeing, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, References to Depression, Smoking, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19423750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellfishDimes/pseuds/shellfishDimes
Summary: Apro gets the text from Dongwook while he's having dinner.Hyung, how much do you know about dyeing your hair?





	sick of all my days and nights

Apro gets the text from Dongwook while he's having dinner.

_Hyung, how much do you know about dyeing your hair?_

Well, calling it _having dinner_ might be putting it too generously. He's sitting on the floor with his spine digging into the sofa and his shins digging into the table, slurping down his second helping of convenience store ramyun. His laptop is on the table in front of him, its screen one of the few light sources in the room. Yeah, it's been that kind of day. 

Apro balances the plastic bowl on his knees, trusting that it's just full enough that it won't tip over. Spicy ramyun orange is impossible to get out of grey joggers.

 _Less than a hairdresser,_ he texts back. His phone tells him it's one thirty in the morning. He's been trying to put together some of the material for his upcoming exhibition, but he's spent more time falling down a Pinterest hole looking at Do Ho Suh's installations than thinking about his own.

It takes Dongwook less than half a minute to reply. _Are you busy?_

A glance at Apro's laptop screen tells him that he can't sleep until he's finished editing the promo video for the event, or at least until he sends the merch manufacturers the mockups of the pin badges. He sighs, and stacks the half-eaten ramyun on top of the other empty bowl. He doesn't have an appetite anymore.

He types, _Yeah, getting ready for the exhibition._ He's about to send it when his phone trills in his hand. 

A new message from Dongwook says, _I think I'm having a mental breakdown hahaha._

Apro stares at his phone screen and his unsent message as Dongwook says, _Sorry._

His phone trills again. Dongwook says, _I know it's late but I figured you'd be awake._

Apro holds backspace, deleting what he'd written, and gets to his feet. He snaps his laptop shut.

Dongwook says, _I read somewhere that impulsively dyeing your hair means you're going crazy or something, hahaha._

Shrugging his jacket on, Apro types Dongwook's home address into his taxi app. 

A notification pops down from the top of his screen as he's tying his shoes. _Ah, forget it,_ Dongwook says. _Sorry for going off like that. I'll talk to you tomorrow, hyung!_

Apro sits down on the floor, one shoe tied, the other hanging off his toes, laces snaking and catching on the rough jute of his door mat. He holds his phone in both hands, Kakao Talk open, staring at his and Dongwook's chat window, and waits for another message. A minute. Three. Nothing else comes through.

His taxi is two minutes away. He texts, _Your door code is still the same, right? I should be there in 20 minutes~_

Dongwook doesn't reply, but the little number 1 next to Apro's message disappears pretty quickly. So he did see it. Apro figures that's fine. His work can wait until the morning. And he can send emails from his phone, anyway.

When he gets there, Dongwook's flat smells of eomuk guk and cigarettes. There's music playing, something repetitive and loud enough that Apro can hear it clearly as far as the front door. It's too high energy for how late it is, which is uncharacteristic of Dongwook, who almost always listens to chill, lo-fi stuff these days, especially when he can't sleep.

Apro hangs his jacket on the same hook he always uses when he comes over. He toes his shoes off, places them neatly next to a pair of Dongwook's sneakers. He slides on the slippers he always uses when he comes over. They're blue with Pororo's cute face on them, a reference to a joke between the two of them that Apro pretends not to remember and will never repeat to anyone. 

He finds Dongwook in the bathroom. He's wearing an ancient pair of pyjama bottoms, flannel and worn out at the knees. He's also wearing an Aladdin T-shirt that a friend bought him from the Disney Store in San Francisco years ago, back when Dongwook thought he needed to be skinner to feel good about himself. It's tighter on him now.

"That wasn't twenty minutes," Dongwook says. His hair is wet. There's a towel around his shoulders. He has an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He's barefoot on the tiles. Apro can't see his slippers anywhere.

"I told the taxi driver to hurry up," Apro says. He looks around for the lighter, and finds it on the toilet tank. He has to reach past Dongwook to get it, and as he does, his chest brushes Dongwook's shoulder. Dongwook doesn't move. A drop of water falls from his hair onto Apro's forearm as he retreats, lighter acquired. 

"I'm fine," Dongwook says, like he's answering a question. Apro hands him the lighter. Dongwook's hands don't shake as he lights his cigarette, so he's probably telling the truth. At least, Apro has seen him be worse than this. "The pack's on the sink, help yourself."

Apro does. The cigarettes are next to an electric blue tube of hair dye. He pulls a cigarette out of the pack, and puts it between his lips. He clicks the lighter on, brings the flame to the tip of the cigarette, and inhales until the tip glows red.

Exhaling the first smoke, he says, "Blue, huh?"

As Dongwook smokes, he turns his head to blow the smoke in the direction of the open window. Outside, Apro can see an orange streetlight and the windowless, dirty wall of the building opposite. He remembers Gum getting drunk one night and hanging out of that window, arm stretched out, convinced the buildings were pressed together so tightly he could touch the wall across the way. He remembers having to pull Gum back in by his hoodie, and laughing until his cheeks hurt.

"I think it will look better than the red did. Samuel hyung had it and it looked good on him." Dongwook still has his face turned away. "Yongshin, too." He takes another drag on his cigarette. His jaw is tense. So are his shoulders. 

"The red looked good," Apro says calmly. "The blue will, too."

Dongwook grins, and turns so that he's facing Apro again. "It has to look better than this, right?" Apro can't see anything wrong with his hair. It's wet, which makes the grays and whites look more yellow than they are normally. His roots are starting to show, but not enough to not look attractive. 

And that's a word Apro just thought about his dongsaeng, isn't it. Attractive.

He shakes ash off his cigarette into the sink, right above the drain. The ash hits the moisture and fizzes. 

"The problem is, I can't see the back of my head, and I'm worried I'll fuck it up," Dongwook says. He smokes, a quick pull on his cigarette. "But I have to do it." He picks at his cuticles. If he were wearing long sleeves, he'd be pulling them down over his knuckles. There's a necklace around his neck, under his shirt. He picks at his shirt, like he wants to pull the necklace out, but he doesn't.

Apro can feel the anxiety radiating off him, bounced back in the music that's playing. The beat gets under his skin in a way that doesn't feel good. "I can see the back of your head," he says. "You got rubber gloves?"

The gloves are white and snap onto Apro's hands. He feels ridiculous with them on. He expected the loose, transparent ones that you get at petrol stations. Instead, these ones make it seem like he's about to ask the nurse to hand him a scalpel so he can start operating.

He makes Dongwook sit on the toilet with the lid down while he squints at the instructions on the tube of dye. And then he makes Dongwook towel his hair dry while he has another cigarette and reads through the instructions again. 

Dongwook lowers the towel and looks at him. "I've read them too, you know." He tries to flatten his hair with a hand. It sort of works. "I know how it's supposed to go."

Apro nods. He bounces the tube of dye in his hand. "You don't have a brush, do you? Like a hair dye brush?" Dongwook just stares at him. Apro smiles. "Yeah, never mind." He takes a slow pull on his cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. He exhales it, aiming for the window. "I'm just going to squeeze all of it on there, rub it in, and hope."

Dongwook keeps his toothbrush, toothpaste and a solitary black comb in an old, chipped glass on the edge of the sink. It looks like it was stolen from a dive bar back when he was a student. Apro tries to remember how he's seen hairdressers do this. He needs… some kind of receptacle. And something to stir the dye with, right?

He takes the toothpaste, the toothbrush and the comb out of the glass. He washes the comb, the toothbrush handle, and the glass in the sink. He takes a break to put his cigarette out and hands the butt to Dongwook so that he can throw it in the toilet. And then, Apro squeezes the entire tube of hair dye into the glass, and stirs it with the toothbrush handle.

Dongwook watches him and giggles, hiding his teeth behind his hand. "What are you doing?" He shakes his head, and it pushes his hair out of his face. He looks paler than Apro is used to seeing him.

"It oxidizes the dye," Apro says, talking out of his ass. By the look on Dongwook's face, he knows it, too. Apro laughs. "Can you comb your hair out for me?"

Dongwook takes the proffered comb. Their fingers touch. "Can I still smoke?"

The song switches from something with heavy guitars to something with a soft, electronic beat, and Apro instantly feels calmer. Must be a new playlist. "Sure," he says. "Just don't get it in the dye."

Getting the dye in Dongwook's hair takes longer than Apro thought. He tries to make it look like he at least has a vague idea of what he's doing, by brushing Dongwook's hair bit by bit and coating it with dye. Dongwook tries to sit still, but it takes long enough that after a while he's fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. And then, he's bouncing his knee, going faster and faster the longer Apro takes.

Apro nudges Dongwook's shin with his foot. "Quit it." 

Dongwook stops bouncing his knee, but now he's rubbing his toes over the tile. "Sorry." He bites his lower lip. "I don't have any more cigarettes." He gnaws on his piercing. "I'm gonna have to go to the convenience store."

"I have a pack in my jacket," Apro says. "You can have some when we're done." He scoops more dye out of the glass with his fingers, and rubs it on Dongwook's hair. "How's your scalp?"

"It's fine, it almost doesn't sting at all," Dongwook says. He chuckles to himself. "So my hair won't fall out."

Apro scoffs a laugh. "Probably."

"Hey, thanks for doing this, hyung," Dongwook says. His hands are between his knees. He's squeezing his thighs together. "My texts were kind of all over the place." He pauses, and then, quieter, he says, "I'm... kind of all over the place."

Apro hums, to show that he's listening. He spreads more of the dye on Dongwook's hair, and decides it's time to abandon the comb and just go with his fingers.

"Um, do you ever feel like." Dongwook starts. He stops rubbing the tiles with his toes. He stretches his feet out until they touch the opposite wall. It's not a very big bathroom. "Sometimes I feel like I'm just not doing _enough._ Hyoseob and Jiho are starting their own agencies, and Hyoseob has all these collaborations and featurings. He did one with Epik High, for god's sake. And Seunghyunnie is going to be a producer on the next _Show Me The Money_. And you're.. well, you're _you_."

Apro doesn't know what he means by that. Sure, he's _him_. That guy, Min Dongwook. With hands that are too big, ears that curve strange enough to look stupid instead of sexy, acne scars that are too deep and lips that are too flat. Min Dongwook, the guy who goes to the Noryangjin fish market at two in the morning to record the sounds of fish being delivered, gutted, and wrapped in grease paper. Who shoves through daytime crowds at Gwangjang market to catch the yelling of the bindaetteok ahjummas and the chattering of the Chinese tourists on tape. Who records the noises of bottles clinking together when he goes out drinking with his friends, and then puts it on a track. 

He smiles. He knows Dongwook can't see it, but he hopes that he can at least hear it in his voice. "And you're you, Dongwookie."

"Yeah, and what have I done with that," Dongwook says, voice flat. "Put out one album? Done like, what, two solo concerts?" He picks at the faded fabric on his knees. "I'm proud, and I'm so, so grateful you're with me, but it feels like I'm sprinting to catch up with everyone else, and they're just getting further and further away. And they're not even out of breath, while I'm feeling like my lungs will collapse."

"That's a good metaphor," Apro says gently. He runs his fingers through Dongwook's hair, spreading the dye. "Have you thought about putting it in a song?"

He doesn't miss Dongwook saying he's glad to have him at his side. It catches in his thoughts like walking through cobwebs, sticking to everything it touches. 

Dongwook laughs, but he just sounds sad. It's the kind of sad that sounds too raw to be shared with many. "At least my hair will look better now, right," he says. "Is it done?"

There's no dye left in the glass. Apro's gloves are blue, but so is most of Dongwook's head. "It's done," he says. "You have to let it sit for at least half an hour before you wash it out." He peels the gloves off, one by one, careful to wrap the stained and wet parts on the inside.

Dongwook squeezes past him to get to the mirror and look at himself. He bends his knees so he can see the very top of his head. He takes his phone out and turns his back to the mirror, turning on the selfie camera so he can look at the back of his head. Apro watches him do it, leaning against the bathroom wall. Dongwook's lips quirk as he tries to look at his hair from every angle, concentrating. His whole head is electric blue. Apro hopes he did a good job. 

Dongwook exhales. "Okay," he says. It sounds like enough. He turns to Apro. "Have you eaten?"

Apro thinks back on the empty plastic bowls of ramyun stacked on his coffee table, and the slightly greasy film that will have formed over the soup and the coagulated noodles when he comes back. "Just before I got here," he says. "Have you?"

"I went to the eomuk ahjumma on the street corner before she closed for the night," Dongwook says, and that explains why his place smelled like eomuk guk when Apro got there. "She really gave me an earful about how I should be getting more sleep." Dongwook smiles, lips closed over teeth, in that way that makes his upper lip arch pleasantly and his dimples pop. In that way where it gives up just before reaching his eyes. Off the black circles around Dongwook's eyes, Apro judges that the ahjumma was probably right. "Coffee, then?"

"I can make it," Apro says. He knows where Dongwook keeps the grounds.

He's made coffee here enough times he could probably do it in his sleep. Usually because Dongwook was in too bad of a place to do it himself. Sometimes, Apro would bring his laptop so he could work but still spend time in the same physical space as Dongwook, because they both had days where that meant much more to the both of them than it usually did. Sometimes, Apro would clean Dongwook's kitchen, wipe the dust off his figurines, that kind of thing. Sometimes, he'd bring the walnut pastries from that little bakery near the subway station that Dongwook liked. They'd have coffee and pastries, listen to records at a really low volume, and be near each other, and it somehow helped. It made Apro feel like he was doing something worthwhile. Like he was helping.

Once, when Dongwook was in such a bad place he thought his brain would never again move at the same speed that he needed to be creative, Apro sat down at his computer and mixing deck, and gave him a song.

Coming to Dongwook's house at nearly three in the morning to help him dye his hair was a new one, to be sure, but whatever helped his friend, Apro was willing to do.

He makes the coffee strong and black, with a lot of sugar for Dongwook and with slightly less for himself. They sit on the sofa together, mugs mismatched, and Apro takes the pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and a clean ashtray from the kitchen drawer. It's an ancient plastic thing with the Marlboro logo that Jiho dug out for Dongwook from the depths of a cluttered vintage store in Hoxton. 

Dongwook turns down the music until it's at the very edge of their hearing, soft beats and keyboards and the hint of dreamy vocals tickling the back of Apro's neck. Apro sets a timer on his phone for half an hour, and places it on the coffee table with the screen facing down. He pulls two cigarettes out of the pack, lights Dongwook's for him, and then his own. The coffee is just hot enough to drink without burning his tongue.

Apro sits slouched low, with his knees wide, the nape of his neck on the back of the sofa. Dongwook still has the towel around his neck. It's a pale brown, unexciting sandy colour. He smokes like he's missed it. Apro smokes with slow and deep inhales, until his head starts spinning. He lets his eyes fall closed.

"Thanks for the help, hyung," Dongwook says. Apro opens his eyes, and turns his head to look at him. Dongwook smiles, and this time his teeth peek out a little. This time it warms his eyes a little, but if Apro blinked, he'd miss it. 

"Of course, hey." He reaches over to put his hand on Dongwook's knee, on the frayed flannel, just for a moment before he removes it. "You're my dongsaeng, right?"

Dongwook watches the movement of Apro's hand from his knee and back to the mug of coffee. "Right." He raises his hand, like he's about to run it through his hair in a nervous gesture, but then he seems to remember that he's got a whole tube of hair dye on there, and drops his hand to his neck. He fiddles with the chain of the necklace he's wearing instead, picking at it and running the pads of his fingers over the links.

"If you hadn't texted, I would have stayed up all night worrying about my exhibition," Apro says. Dongwook looks up from his lap, and their eyes meet. Apro sits up so he can shake the ash off his cigarette into the ashtray. He can still feel Dongwook's eyes on him. "I'm at that point where I worry about every detail so much I miss the big picture." He takes a drag on his cigarette until he can feel his lungs expand with the smoke. "Like, what if I'm trying too hard for nothing, and nobody except my friends shows up to see it."

"They will," Dongwook says, with such complete conviction that it tugs at Apro's heart. "You're one of the most talented people I know. The stuff you're doing… Nobody else is doing it like that."

Apro exhales the smoke. "So are you, you know." It stings his throat on the way out. He stares at his coffee. "If there's anything I've learned, it's that comparing yourself to others is a waste of energy." He tugs at the necklace he's wearing. "Work hard, and try to be better than who you were before." He hopes that what he's saying doesn't sound like he's reading it off a motivational poster. It's too long to fit on a poster, anyway. "That's all you can do." He pulls the necklace out of his shirt, rubbing the stone on the pendant with his thumb.

"Oh," Dongwook says, a soft sound of surprise. Apro looks over to see him tug at the necklace under his own shirt, and pull it out. He holds it up, the pendant swaying with the motion, and then lets it drop to his chest.

"You're wearing it, too," Apro says. His is identical, except for the inscription on the back. His face feels like it should be smiling, but the muscles can't quite find it in themselves to pull his cheeks up and stretch his lips wide.

"I— I barely take it off," Dongwook says. The pendant is a white stone with black veins. And on the back, it says, _to my lil bro_ , and Apro's name. The smoke from Dongwook's cigarette curls into the air between them. Dongwook doesn't look shy, just thoughtful, and a little like his face is also fighting against making an expression that Apro can't guess at. 

Apro lets himself smile. Small enough that his teeth don't show, but wide enough that his cheeks go a little round. Dongwook's lips quirk when he puts his cigarette between them, like they're warding off a grin.

Apro's whole body jerks when his phone alarm goes off, and Dongwook laughs at him. "Alright," he says, heart pounding, over Dongwook's cackle, "you have to wash out the dye now."

Dongwook nods. "Help me out?"

Dongwook's shower is just a step down from the rest of the bathroom floor, nothing but a drain and a glass door. He bends down, hands on his knees, and Apro turns the showerhead on, trying to aim it as precise as possible so he doesn't get anything wet except Dongwook's hair. Dongwook's fingers are already in his hair when Apro realises they forgot the gloves.

"Your shirt will get wet," Apro says, over the sound of the shower. "Just take it off." The brown towel, smudged with blue, hangs on the shower door.

Dongwook shakes his head. Water sprays everywhere, making Apro take a step to the side so his socks don't get wet. "It won't if you're careful." He bows his head lower, putting his hands on his knees again and letting gravity take over for him.

The water runs blue. Electric blue at first, and then paler and paler as more of the leftover dye trickles down from Dongwook's head. When the water runs clear again, Apro leans across Dongwook to turn the shower off.

Steam swirls out of the bathroom window and into the night outside. Dongwook yanks the towel down from the door and over his head before he's even straightened up completely. He steps out of the shower, following Apro. He doesn't get far before Apro is putting both of his hands on his head, getting a good grip on the towel. His shoulders go up in discomfort as Apro starts rubbing.

"Come on, gotta get it dry," Apro says, drying Dongwook's hair vigorously, the way mothers do to kids when they don't want them to get a head cold.

Under the towel, Dongwook laughs, muffled by cotton. His arms come up, and he tugs at Apro's wrists, attempting to pull Apro's hands off his head. "It's dry enough!"

Apro laughs, mostly as a response to Dongwook's laughter, and pushes the towel off his head, back around his neck. The towel is covered in light blue blotches, and probably uncomfortably damp at this point. Dongwook lifts his face. He's flushed from bending down and the heat of the water. He's grinning, so wide that Apro can see all his teeth. 

Dongwook's hair is sticking up like he suffered a mild electric shock. And it's blue. A pale blue, like a cloudless spring day, like forget-me-not, with yellow at the tips like the dawn. Apro takes a corner of the towel, and flattens Dongwook's hair down as much as he's able to. They're standing close, Apro's socks almost touching Dongwook's toes. His slippers are at the bathroom door, placed neatly next to each other.

Dongwook's eyes are warm. His hands are still holding onto Apro's wrists when he moves to close the gap between them and press his lips to Apro's. It's quick and soft, and then Dongwook is already moving away, leaving Apro's thoughts all in a jumble in his wake.

And Apro feels something in his gut, a tug of sorts. That kind of tug that sometimes pulls at him when Dongwook reaches over to take his hand to thank him for something, or when he puts his arm around Apro's shoulders and laughs. 

"Thanks," Dongwook says, and he's still smiling. He's let go of Apro's hands, and he goes to move past him, towards the living room.

Apro catches his wrist. "Wait." Dongwook stops, and their eyes meet. 

And Apro pulls him closer, and kisses him, closed lips against lips. Dongwook's are a little crooked, and even though Apro has his eyes closed when it happens, he knows why — Dongwook is smiling. 

He opens his eyes to catch Dongwook leaning forward, stepping between his feet. And then he has to close his eyes again, because Dongwook's lips are back on his, and when he opens his mouth Dongwook's tongue is there to meet his, and the tugging feeling in Apro's gut warms, and spreads. His heart pounds.

Dongwook tastes like coffee, and his kisses are careful, like he's learning that this is something he likes in the moment it happens. Not that he likes Apro, no, but this — slipping his tongue along Apro's, and the way Apro tilts his head to the side just right so that he can kiss Dongwook deeper, so that he can get his lips around Dongwook's lip ring. Apro thinks he can feel Dongwook shiver under his palms once, when he places them on Dongwook's chest, but it could just be either of their racing heartbeats. 

When they stop, Apro's face is warm and his fingers are wet from being in Dongwook's hair. No blue sticks to them. He's breathing through his mouth, like there's not enough oxygen in the room, even though the window is open. Even though the dust particles aren't too bad tonight. He should probably stop smoking so much.

Dongwook's pupils are wide, and it's not because of the light. The light is bright enough. "Does it look good?"

Apro turns his head to the bathroom mirror, and sees himself. His face is flushed, his lips dark. He sees his hands — one on the nape of Dongwook's neck, another on his hip. He sees Dongwook's arms, wrapped around his waist. How the tension is all gone from Dongwook's shoulders. Dongwook is looking at their reflection, too, the smallest of frowns tucked in the crease between his eyebrows. 

He sees the both of them, together. He watches himself move the hand that's on Dongwook's hip, to pull him in closer. It's like he's swept all his jumbled thoughts together, and when he moved his hand away, they were in perfect order again.

He kisses Dongwook's forehead, which is still a little damp, and that frown smooths out. He watches Dongwook's smile in the mirror as it happens, wide, not self-conscious in the slightest.

And Apro says, "Yeah, it looks great."

**Author's Note:**

> [do ho suh's work](https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/do-ho-suh) is pretty great, although I don't know how apro feels about it. I also don't know what meco's bathroom looks like. and apro did write a song for meco when meco was depressed! the song is [okay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybRGTjFSTf8).
> 
> happy pride month!! meco dyed his hair [blue](https://twitter.com/j_haedal/status/1142810487987458048) recently, so!!
> 
> thanks to [regrettably](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regrettably/pseuds/regrettably) for the wonderful work she does for this ship. 
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/doyoufanxy)!


End file.
